Are directory links really this powerful?

Hi,

I'm currently ranking no.6 for my keyword on google.co.uk, so I decided to check the top 5's backlinks to see what they do. All 5 have at least 75% of their backlinks from directories, with one site having 95% of its links from the same directory just under different categories?! (1,000+ backlinks). I checked the PR of the site and it's only PR 2.

Are directory links really this powerful, or is it a case of quantity out-does quality in this case?

Thanks.

No, they're generally not that powerful. Unless they are paid directory links in which they might be more powerful (or not). I've got to the first page with directory links + AMR in the past with a few sites, but for most sites I can get to page 2 only with directory links.

Hey just another dumb question can u recommend any good directory submission service that u have been using jb2008 ?

Yes, many directory links are *extremely* powerful. A listing in certain directories is like a super high quality reference saying your site is of the highest quality.

Whether it's paid or not isn't so important and in fact the very best directory links are free, not paid. The best you can get is a dmoz link.

Some paid ones are good too because a lot of the top paid ones do require a manual review too, although they're still easier than dmoz to get listed on.

Most directories are crap though. Getting on the best ones is what sets the good SEO firms from the average ones.

I'm afraid I can't disclose my own personal list of directories, you'll have to compile your own. I can tell you that dmoz is the best there is and the yahoo listing is also very strong.

Directory links can and often present hidden gems in terms of link power to your money sites. The trick is to find them. This is where scrapebox comes in - check out some common footprints from any of the major directories and use these to scrape very large lists. Either throw in a crap load of harvested proxies to check PR or better still head over to http://pagerank.my-addr.com/ with your 1mil plus urls and get them PR checked in a jiffy.

If you change up your footprints and include huge keyword lists to search on you will find a whole host of high PAGE PR (DF) where you can drop your link and in my experience the costs of submitting is either free or just a few bucks

It depend on the niches you are working in.

Personnaly, we are using almost only directory links for our custommers and they are all in the first page of Google for targetted keywords.

Local directories help a lot for local business. It's also important to use relevant categories and dont throw links anywhere like my ex-girlfriend was doing when i hired her

Using inurl and intitle parameters to make search in gg to find targetted ones are one of the best trick i know to do it manually.

takeachance said:

If you change up your footprints and include huge keyword lists to search on you will find a whole host of high PAGE PR () where you can drop your link and in my experience the costs of submitting is either free or just a few bucks

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This isn't great advice. A good directory isn't determined by the PR. PR is a very old metric that had much more significance years ago. These days there are far more important metrics that sites are measured by.

A good directory link primarily is about trust. If Google trusts the directory then you get instant trust by having a link from it. That's what you want from directories, not PR.

You want to find directories that are harder to get onto. If they're hard to get onto then it probably means Google trusts them since they're not just handing out links to any old site.

Article sites саn generate somе decent traffic аs well, assuming іt'ѕ an article worthy оf being read! A crappy article wіth a link will likеly nоt pull іn much оf anything...however, аn article worth beіng read сan get linked toо by othеr sites aѕ а resource. When thаt hарреnѕ trickle traffic cаn bе had.

Directories I find give thе leаѕt amount оf human traffic, аnd that's ANY directory.

Reciprocal links arе а GREAT asset, assuming thаt both sites arе related. I have a few оut therе аnd some оf thеm do give somе good human traffic.

The bеst thing іѕ to gеt а mix of links, аnd in dоіng sо make surе that eасh link іs оn a high quality page that offers ѕomething to the HUMAN reading it.

Yeah, I forgot to add that *some* directories are powerful, esp dmoz and yahoo, but most free directories, in particular auto approve, are not that powerful. Many don't allow deeplinking either. The worst thing about directory submissions is that services charge for X amount of submissions, not X livelinks. For example I submit 4000 and get only 100 auto approve.

I know a couple of SEOs that use a program called, "digixmas" for submitting.

BlueTurtle said:

This isn't great advice. A good directory isn't determined by the PR. PR is a very old metric that had much more significance years ago. These days there are far more important metrics that sites are measured by.

A good directory link primarily is about trust. If Google trusts the directory then you get instant trust by having a link from it. That's what you want from directories, not PR.

You want to find directories that are harder to get onto. If they're hard to get onto then it probably means Google trusts them since they're not just handing out links to any old site.

Click to expand...

PR continues to be a strong metric from which Google built itself up from. Sure, the trust issue is becoming more and more important and there are many other metrics to determine this. But, to say that dropping your link on a PR5 page is not good advice seems rather short sighted given the history of what PR represents.

I guess from your intuitive insights you would shy away from leaving your link on a high PR page if you assess the 'trust' rank to be lower than your threshold? The main part of my point is that finding high quality pages to drop your link is not easy but through assessing large lists and making good use of footprints you can find them.

Your comment "If they're hard to get into then it probably means Google trusts them" applies to only a very few select directories which are on the g00gle radar as human edited directories (dmoz and yahoo dir). That leaves you with very little directories. Frankly I find your comments baseless and without any foundation not too mention entirely unhelpful and unconstrcutive.

takeachance said:

PR continues to be a strong metric from which Google built itself up from. Sure, the trust issue is becoming more and more important and there are many other metrics to determine this. But, to say that dropping your link on a PR5 page is not good advice seems rather short sighted given the history of what PR represents.

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The "history" of what it represents is the key word here. Why isn't dropping your link on articlesbase or ezinearticles going to be good anymore in that case? Both are PR6. PR alone does not determine whether or not a link will be good for you.

A whole load of pr2+ directory links isn't advised in a post-panda world. As I said directories are purely about trust, not PR.

takeachance said:

I guess from your intuitive insights you would shy away from leaving your link on a high PR page if you assess the 'trust' rank to be lower than your threshold? The main part of my point is that finding high quality pages to drop your link is not easy but through assessing large lists and making good use of footprints you can find them.

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I most certainly would. I would be pretty silly and short-sighted to want a link on a spammy page just because it has a decent PR.

takeachance said:

Your comment "If they're hard to get into then it probably means Google trusts them" applies to only a very few select directories which are on the g00gle radar as human edited directories (dmoz and yahoo dir). That leaves you with very little directories. Frankly I find your comments baseless and without any foundation not too mention entirely unhelpful and unconstrcutive.

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Yes, indeed, it does leave you with very few directories. That's the point. Just as in it's not beneficial to get 100's of links from article directories anymore it's neither beneficial to get 100's of links from directories all over the place that says nothing about the quality of your site.

If you can just place your link on all these directories then what good is it? It doesn't convey trust and it doesn't convey any social indicator about people viewing your page in high regard.

I don't even bother looking at PR. I look at the inbound links to a site, where it links to, the actual content, ie is it spammy, badly written, does the page contain excess ads and is it relevant to my niche.

If your strategy is to just get a link because it's high PR then be my guest and continue doing what you're doing and I'll continue ranking for competitive keywords while you dance with Google.

This is the last I'll say on this. I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise as I have a feeling you prefer being right than making money. I simply wrote this because my reasoning wasn't clear to other people viewing this thread that might like to learn more about SEO.

No they are not powerful...they are one of the least effective link methods.

Which tool did you use to check their links, as it is quite possible that the tool you are using not to have all of their links in its db.

I enjoyed your heroic attempts to portray yourself as an preeminent authority on all aspects of SEO but the truth of the matter is this;

BlueTurtle said:

This is the last I'll say on this.

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was the most intelligent statement you have made since joining this forum.

Nuff said

What directories are they linking in - I mean the sites that are ranking above you? If they are outranking you due to their directory links, then you should look to get links in those same places. As others here have said, it's about the quality of the directories. You might get listed in tons and tons of different directories, but only a handful of those will have Google's trust.

Good 3-way link sharing and sound content - as well as good on-page SEO - will be more beneficial than probably 99% of link directories, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't submit links to directories. The more strings you have to your bow, the better.